Lights Out, Flying Blind

[John O'Connor]

My trusty 480ES (G reg vintage) has had an intermittent problem over the past ~4 months of losing dashboard illumination lights and the information centre display ( no fuel gauge, temp gauge, range, mpg etc). Flicking on the headlights corrected these. Until now!! These are permanently off but handbrake, alternator, oil pressure, main beam,etc. warning lights all continue to work.
Haynes indicates a relay feeding power to the info centre and dash illumination, but apparently not one in the bulkhead cluster! My friendly non volvo garage rmechanic (Polski Franz) remover the dashboard and recons the relay is mounted on the back of the dashboard itself. Either repair or replace (breakers yard)?

Any ideas esp if you've been afflicted in the same way eg other cures?

Red Sven

[carl4u44]

Have you tried the brown wires coming off the alternator? Common problem I know which does effect the info center.

Are your day running lights working ok? Are they the correct size of 'off set' bulbs? This will also effect the headlights....Do they even pop up?

Most of the relays are under the bonnet in the triangler box.

[John O'Connor]

Thanks for your reply. The day running light and the front headlight all work reliably. Chris Wickers in his magazine article also referred to checking the alternator output lead, which seems to be OK. Most surprisingly, the dash lights and info centre started working of their own accord about 10 days ago; to date reliably! I'd previously tried tapping the relays in the triangular box under the bonnet. - no change! I suspect a faulty one may have caused this - don't understand how it recovered and if it will come back to haunt!).
The indicators now occasionally miss a few beats then recover. Electrics!!

[carl4u44]

I believe the indicator relays on the 480, as on mine, was situated down on the passenger side kick panel, next to the bonnet pull (right hand drive cars) so perhaps worth checking around there. You should hear it clicking from there also, but them seem hell to get at. A sticky relay will cause your indicators to miss a beat.

Furthermore, the info center, if you had checked those alternator wires, by moving them slightly, especially the brown wire, you could have indeed created a better connection. Best to remove and rub down and clean those wires, ensuring a definite good connection!

On mine, the brown wire of the alternator caused the lights out on my info center.

On the 480 owner club web site I have put up a post a year back on how to solve the 'jumbled up alien words info center', which I may bring to this sites attention. However, thankfully it seems your info center is not suffering from this.....

[B20F]

The relais for the infocentre is located in the oval relaisbox. It's position is C15, the relais has a yellow base. On the top broad side of the oval the're 4 relais in a row. If the most left one is A when looking from the narrow side of the oval, the 3rd is C15.
Here you can download the wiring diagrams.

Most of the times intermittend indicators are caused by dirty contacts in the hazard light switch. Remove it and clean with contactspray. Look at the contacts inside, sometimes they need some readjusting so they can make propper contact again.

[John O'Connor]

Originally Posted by B20F

The relais for the infocentre is located in the oval relaisbox. It's position is C15, the relais has a yellow base. On the top broad side of the oval the're 4 relais in a row. If the most left one is A when looking from the narrow side of the oval, the 3rd is C15.
Here you can download the wiring diagrams.

Most of the times intermittend indicators are caused by dirty contacts in the hazard light switch. Remove it and clean with contactspray. Look at the contacts inside, sometimes they need some readjusting so they can make propper contact again.

Thanks for that. The dash lights were working reliably for about 10 days but not now since the car went through MOT (no electrical problems!)
I'll look at the relays this weekend and hopefully the hazard switch too!

[micki]

cheak the connectin on back of dash lefthand side is in ok i had same problem